HOUSE CLEANING AFTER MARTINS AND SPARROWS

I like the way Robert Frost announces in his poetic way what he is going to do that day. For example, "I'm going out to clean the pasture spring," and "I'm going out to fetch the little calf..."

Somehow, long ago, Frost got me into the habit of announcing to myself, even before I get out of bed of a morning, what I'm going to do that day. Of course, in the course of a day, naturally I'm going to do many things, but the main thing that I have in mind doing is what determines the announcement.

So, yesterday, when fully awake, I said, "I'm going out to clean the martin house today." I peeked through the shades and saw some stars, indicating that it was going to be another bright blue and gold autumn day. So I said again, "Yessir, I'm going out to clean the martin house today." This determines what clothes I put on, because such a house cleaning is a dusty, dirty job. Canvas shoes, so as to grip the first rung of the ladder. That's all, just the first rung. Old slacks, old shirt, old jacket. The jacket would have to be shed halfway through I was sure, because a golden glow in the east predicted warm sunshine. Indian Summer sunshine.

My resolution affected my breakfast too. No coffee and toast only. That wouldn't last through the first story of the house. So, a bowl of oatmeal and some biscuits were in order, along with some butter and crabapple jelly I made last summer.

A curious happiness spreads over me when I've decided to do one definite thing and do it well. In addition, in this instance, my thoughts will be made merry by the knowledge that I'm preparing for next year's return of my beloved chortling friends.

After breakfast is done, dishes are washed, bed made up the Big Three I tie a scarf around my head because after 15 years of cleaning the martin house I know what dust and feathers, sticks and grass and other unidentified dirt can swirl around once I get after those 12 abandoned summer apartments and venture forth.

The ladder gets heavier every year. Next year I'm going to just have a tiny one, one or two steps.

With a proper sized wrench I can lower the house whose two sections telescope into each other. Bill, my neighbor, has to raise it for me in the spring.

Doing one side at a time, I open all the metal doors and slide them back on their appropriate rods.

This is not easy. After 15 years, sometimes the rods get bent and the sides of the door that are supposed to slide, don't. But I'm happy at the task.

Next comes the pulling out of the old nests. The martins' nests require little work. There's a little mound of mud at the front, for what reason, I'm not sure. Maybe to keep the fledglings from falling out, for the rest of the nest is only a few dry leaves mud-pasted to the floor.

Should there be sparrow nests to remove, and there always are, this is a different matter. Since the apartments are square, the sparrows' nests come out looking like tightly pressed, miniature bales of hay.

Sparrows use so many things for their nests grass, strings, bits of cellophane, feathers lots of feathers. The eggs are laid and babies hatched in the middle of this miniature bale. I think the mother sparrow could be gone all day and those summertime eggs would never cool off enough to endanger a good hatch.

I scrape the floors and walls and use the whisk broom and then scrape some more. Obstinate stuff clings to the sides of the metal walls.

Then there is the other side. It turns on the pole. After the cleaning I bring out the long hose, purchased especially so that it will reach the martin house. With the nozzle screwed so that a powerful stream of water emerges, I poke it into each apartment. Of course with this high powered stream, some of it, really a great deal of it, splashes back on me. But then it is a pretty warm way by this time. Already I have shed the jacket.

Blue jays make blue scallops in the air. A mockingbird changes its tune often and the crows that have been with us all summer "caw" up a storm as if I'm tearing down a shock of corn they were depending on.

With a cloth I wipe out the metal rooms and leave them for a while to dry out in the sun.

I, too, take some time to dry out, sitting in my marigold screened garden seat, eating cheese and crackers and drinking a soda.

In about an hour I return to the martin house, dust it with sulfur to destroy any mites lingering in the seams, pull out and down the recalcitrant doors and stop up the little round openings with green doors.

The ladder put away, I bathe, put on dry clothes, sit in the swing and feel so righteous and self-satisfied that if a match should touch me it might burst into flame.

REJOICE!